Singapore and the Merlion

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Finally, the catch up can be completed...

Crossed the border by bus with Cate and after possibly the slowest ever admission into a country from a man so involved with his work he even checked to make sure the photocopy he made of the passport matched the passport we headed to the same guesthouse as Lyndsay and Gemma.

Spent the first evening doing jack-all as i still couldn't drink and left the 3 girls and an Italian, Paulo to head off to Clarke Quay and the clubs. I wandered around the block extremely effed off and went to bed. Alas! Sleep did me good and I joined Lyndsay, Gem and Paulo on a fairly random day around the city. First up was Little Arabia, a nice clean place with a funky temple. Lyndsay confused a local here by asking for a picture with him because she's Irish. He had forgotten he was wearing the Irish rugby jersey.

From here we set off for Orchard Road, the monster street absolutely covered in shopping malls. On realising we couldn't possibly afford anything being backpackers and all we amused ourselves by eating burger king and then getting free coke and helium balloons. Really really hoping the girls work out how to put the video online, we all attempted to sing songs individually. Good times.

From here we decided to hit Sentosa Island, the place where lots of Sing's go for their hols (I actually doubt that). Took the overpriced, unspectacular chairlift over the water to the island. Probably would've been more impressive at night and if a single window on the thing wasn't blurred. The island itself is even more fake and artificial than Disney Land, and of course, Disney Land rocks! Everything on Sentosa is sorta cheap and nasty whilst being stupidly expensive, including the imported sand beaches and all the rides. Once again we just had to amuse ourselves and accomplished this by posing in front of the mighty MerLion statue and doing Zoolander 'A Merman dad, I'm a Merman!' quotes.

Other amusements including crawling into a water display for comedy pictures, though unfortunately I don't have copies of most, there is a delightful one out there with me a Gem using a water fountain to fairly unpleasant effect.
After getting about as much out of this as we could (and it was an alarmingly amount) we headed off for the beach. Only ride we considered going on was the luge, but it looked dump. On asking the guy who ran the ride what was good in the park he pretty much summed out that everything there was crap and that although nowhere near as good as similar rides in Australia, the luge was the best thing! Loved his honesty!

Lounged on the beach where I took a tiny sip of Gem's Magners (mmm only second taste of cider in 7 months) and we generally lazed in chairs.

Realised I've not said anything about Paulo. Ummm, he was in our dorm and the girls dragged him out. He's from near Venice and was a really good guy. Not at all grumpy like some Italian's I've met!

Left Sentosa on the chairlift and headed back for some grub. Cate had spent her day shopping herself to oblivion and disappeared randomly to go (I later found out) to the night safari at the zoo. We said goodbye to Paulo as he was off to fly home and headed off to find the FA Cup final.

I pathetically forgot to mention that we went to watch the Champions League final in the last post whilst in Melaka. Being a Muslim country and a world heritage place it doesn't exactly rank amongst the places with the best night life. Pretty much with the final starting 3am our time, the only place to watch it was outside the 24 hour McDonald's. All things considered it was a good night, great atmosphere, Asians love their football and a surprisingly good amount of people against Manchester United. Funky Dory!

Anyhow, FA Cup Final was oddly difficult to find on anywhere and the three of us ended up in a quiet Hindi bar. Game over and me having had my first beer in 10 days coz of the medications we headed to another bar, Prince of Wales, an Aussie bar. A live band gave a great atmosphere and we all got a little drunk. me and Lyndsay headed to McDonald's whilst Gemma with the willpower of a Viking chose not to indulge and headed back.

Next day was spent helping the 2 girls out with trying to sort out some of their India stuff. The pair of them have brought fake wedding and engagement rings to try to discourage some of the hassle they are guaranteed to get and both have thought up quite scarily extensive back stories about their husbands. Unfortunately at last watch, Lyndsay had divorced her fake Italian husband Scot and Gem believed that her Jamie was cheating. I have told her repeatedly that there is no chance that he would do that, he is a great guy!

Girls left in the early evening and then I headed out to 'the worlds biggest fountain' with Cate. It probably is the worlds biggest, but it is a bit nice and a complete advertising tool. It's also a fairly unimaginative way to propose to someone with a message in laser on the fountain along with all the other love messages.

We headed off then to the Escapade, took numerous pictures of Singapore and night and then headed back to Little India where we had an epic falling out. I headed off to Dulop Street for the same pub as the previous night and remet some people there. Eventually ended up in a little cafe watching wrestling and talking to 2 guys from Nepal who'd moved to Singapore 3 years ago. They loved me as I loved Nepal and knew quite possibly more about the country than they did and I was wearing one of my 2 Nepal t-shirts at the time!

Spent the next day feeling fantastically rough and getting ignored by Cate a lot. Had an early night and set off for Bali the next morning. Ta Da! Up to freaking date, don't expect that again for a while...

Hope you're still enjoying the sun, whilst I'm enjoying some oddly cooler weather here!

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Photos

Merlion
Gemma and the Merlion. On S$19 to go look out of it's mouth!

Fountain Fun
Me and Lyndsy keeping ourselves amused in expensive plastic Sentosa to the confusion of the locals.

Sentosa Beach
Paulo and Gem lazing at the fake beach.

Giant Merlion
An awesome picture by me! Come on, you can admit that it's cool, even though it's taken with my shockingly crap camera. Someone send me a new one for Christmas please! The Mighty Merlion stands noble, guarding the new buildings of Singapore...